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Wednesday, May 15, 2013

BITCH!
Bitch, bitch, bitch BEE-ACH! No matter how long I roll it around in my mouth,
and mentally chew on it, my brain simply cannot digest hearing women referred
to as bitches. I think I’m bitchose intolerant because it nauseates me to hear
so many of seasoning our language with this bitter condiment.

It takes me back
to my childhood when my mother used to make me take a spoonful of Cod Liver Oil
every day. She swore by it for warding off colds and other infectious childhood
diseases. To offset the taste she would mix it with some type of juice and tell
me to hold my breath and drink it. Orange, apple, cranberry—it didn’t matter. Nothing
disguised the taste of the oil and I always had this queasy feeling in my
stomach in the end.

Fast forward to
the future. My aesthetician encourages me to drink Olive Oil or Flax Seed Oil
in the morning to moisturize my skin. Like my mother, she also tells me to mix
it with juice. Though I don’t think I’ll die from the concoction like I did in
my childhood, the residual of oil lacing my lipsand subsequentburps serve as reminders that no matter what I take it down
with, it just doesn’t settle well with me. Bitch is an acquired taste that I
haven’t acquired.

Even when the
heavy peppering of the language leaves us irritated, some of us still like to sample
this unsavory appetizer. So, we try to soothe our discomfort by trying to make
it taste better. It’s Ms. Bitch to
you or we use the acronym Babe In Total
Control of Herself. Maybe it works for some, but it just slides around in
my stomach.

I know that for
some women, Bitch is a term of empowerment and/or endearment. I have had this
conversation with friends and family, and I have had to be firm in my
unwillingness to partake. Sherry Argov’s Why
Men Love Bitches and Why Men Marry
Bitches are popular books, and there are others. Then there is the TV show,
Don’t Trust the B---- in Apt.23. Bitch
seems to be on everybody’s table these days—right there next to the salt and
pepper shakers, and most people sprinkle it throughout their conversation with
little regard to its high level of emotional potency. The recent backlash
against Beyonce for Bow Down proves
that not every woman likes the taste of it.

I remember watching
Queens of Comedy and trying to
distinguish between the negative connotations and the positive connotations,
but after a while it all sounded the same. The women the comedians liked were
bitches. They called themselves bitches. And the women they didn’t like they
called bitches. Try figuring that out!

For the sake of
equality, we have even gotten into the habit of calling men bitches when they
whine, complain or act too aggressive. These are all negative characteristics
we associate with women. As another way of insulting gay men, we call them
bitches, too.

Bitch is a
derogatory term. It is the lowest form of debasement. Harassed by an obscene
phone caller, he terminated every conversation by calling me a bitch of some
sort. Failing to respond to a man’s cat call while walking down the street
earned me the title of bald-headed dyke bitch. Endearing? No! Empowering? I don’t
think so! How can a word that makes a woman feel like the contents of a
pooper-scooper be liberating? I cannot get up from the table after having a big
bowl of bitch and feel good about myself. I’ve tried to tell myself that words
can only have as much power as I give them, but even as I say the word bitch to
myself, it looks and feels nasty in my mouth and makes me want to spit it out.

For those that like
to chew on it, I hope that it does not cause indigestion, heart burn nausea or
the desire to spit it back in the face of the server. As for me, bitch is never
pleasing to my palate. So, if you’re serving it up at your table, I hope you
don’t mind if I pass on the bitch.

Friday, May 3, 2013

I was sitting at the table watching the manicurist
meticulously paint my nails, when he said something about “females.” I sucked
in my breath as the words from his tongue screeched against the chalkboard of
my mind.By the time, he uttered it the
third time, my ears were burning so I said, “I don’t like being called a
female.” He looked at me, paused hunched up his shoulders and resumed polishing
my nails. It was quiet for a few minutes, and then he asked, “What’s wrong with
female?”

And I asked him “If I am simply a female, then what
separates me from a dog, a cat or cow?” He said he never really thought about
it. And I’m sure he didn’t because it’s so common now. But I don’t like it, and
I won’t wear it because the title “female” strips me of my humanity. I don’t
want to be objectified by the v-shaped space below my navel. If being called female is ok, then why don’t
we run around calling guys males?

Female is what I check on forms to distinguish me from a
male. So the only time I want to be referred to as female is for statistical
and identification purposes! When I was born, the doctor said, “It’s a
girl!Time and experience groomed me
into into a young woman, and the tutelage of magnificent mentors blossomed me
into a lady. So, why would I settle for the façade of half-dressed femininity when
I can fully wear the worldliness of a woman and/or the loveliness of a lady so
much better?